API and External Git Access

Heroku now has an API (accessible from the command line, a Ruby library, or REST calls), revision control on all apps with Git, and remote access to the Git repository.

The combination of these new features means that you can now work on your apps using the local tools you love – like TextMate, vi, or emacs – and still get the benefit of zero-configuration deployment to Heroku.

How does it work? Grab the Heroku gem with “gem install heroku”. A sample work session looks like this:

heroku clone myapp
cd myapp
ruby script/server
…edit locally…
git add .
git commit -m “local changes”
git push

The final step will deploy the app to Heroku, including running the migrations on the database and restarting the server. See more in our Getting Started on Heroku with Ruby guide.

Combine your local tools and the Heroku in-the-cloud development tools in any combination you like. Perhaps you want to work locally while at home, but use the web editor when traveling. Every commit to the repository is available from both.